The Russian Ambassador-designate to Ghana, Sergey Berdnikov, has presented his Open Letters to the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey.
The presentation of the letters was done in Accra on Friday, 25th June, 2021.
Mr. Sergey Berdnikov was born in 1966 and has been in active diplomatic service since 1991.
He served in the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations Offices in Vienna (UNOV) from 1994 to 1998, and from 2002 to 2006.
He further served in the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations in New York from 2008 to 2013. The Ambassador-Designate is a father of two children.
During the meeting, the Minister recalled the historic relations between Ghana and Russia dating back to 1958 when Ghana, as a young independent State established diplomatic relations with the then Soviet Union.
She acknowledged Russia’s consistent immense contribution towards the socio-economic development of Ghana, particularly, in the area of capacity building, through the award of scholarships to Ghanaian students to study in Russia (over two thousand beneficiaries to date).
She informed that to further enhance the bilateral relations, technical teams of Ghana and Russia are earnestly preparing to host the Fourth Session of the Ghana-Russia Permanent Joint Commission for Cooperation (PJCC) later this year.
According to her, the exchange of high-level visits, including the visit of the President of the Republic to Sochi, in October 2019 to participate in the Russia-Africa Summit and the visit of the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration to Moscow in August 2019, as well as the visit to Ghana by Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs of Russia, Mikhail Bogdanov in February 2021, have raised the level of our bilateral relations to a higher pedestal.
She referred to the COVID-19 pandemic and the pending order placed by the Government of Ghana for 15 million doses of the Sputnik V vaccines from Russia and urged the Ambassador-designate to assist in ensuring the speedy delivery of the vaccines to Ghana.
She briefed the Ambassador-designate on the economic agenda of the Government, which is predicated on the transformation of the structure of the economy from commodity exporting to an industrialized economy.
She observed that Ghanas economy, even in the face of the global pandemic of COVID-19, continues to show resilience and a much faster rate of recovery than originally envisaged, and urged the Russian envoy to encourage Russian investors to consider doing business in Ghana.
By Melvin Tarlue